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Washington 



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THE NATIONAL SPIRIT 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 



EDWIN A.' ALDRRMAN, LLD, 



BKPORE 



THE WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION 
OF NEW JERSEY 



With Introduction by STEPHEN PIERSON, Vice-President 
and Proceedings of the Celebration 

AT HEADQUARTERS, MORRISTOWN, N. J., 
On February 22. 1911 



D. Of D. 
APR 6 1916 






ADDRESSES 

Before the Members of the Washing-ton Association 

of New Jersey, at Headquarters, Morristown, 

N. J., February 22, 1911. 

DR. PIERSON : Fellow members of the Washinoton 
Association : Your officers are very glad to welcome you to 
your own home again today. We hope that you have been 
pleased so far and we know that you will be pleased after 
you have listened to the program of the afternoon. We also 
hope that you will return to your homes feeling that it has 
lieen a day well spent. 

The program for the afternoon will open with the selec- 
tion that might be entitled "The Adoration of Columbia." 
an ode to be sung by the audience standing, with Brother 
Bennell slightly in the lead. Be sure to remember to repeat 
the third line. 

(Singing of HAIL COLUMBIA.) 

You are all very sorry. I am sure, that our President, 
Mr. Roberts, can not preside in person today. For the last 
two years he has sent you his greetings, using the voice and 
words of a second party. This year he has taken a hint, 
something like that which Priscilla gave to John Alden 
when he came to court her for Miles Standish, "Why don't 
you speak for yourself, John." So Mr, Roberts will speak 
to you this afternoon in his own words, through a letter, 
which will now be read by A'ice President .Alfred Elmer 
Mills. [Applause]. 

1 



MR. MILLS: Before readino^ this message from the 
President I am requested by him to make an announce- 
ment. We have, strange to say, three vacancies still left for 
membership in the Association and the President asks me 
to iannounce that if any of you know of some first-class can- 
didate whom you would like to propose, he would be very 
glad to have it done. The names can be sent to any officer 
of the Association. 

I will now read the President's message, which, T know 
will be acceptable to you all. 

Morris Plains, N. J., February 22, 191 1. 
TO THE WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF NEW 

JERSEY: 

My Dear Associates, FellOw-members and Friends : — 
Your President, now in his ninetieth year, extends a warm 
and hearty greeting to each of his fellow-members and their 
guests assembled here today. 

For more than a quarter of a century, he has had the 
great pleasure of joining in these festive gatherings, but 
now he is physically incapable of doing so — his lower limbs, 
having faithfully served him for about 88 years, have gone 
on a strike and have refused to serve him longer, or even 
to arbitrate the case, and in consequence he and they have 
not, so far, come to a satisfactory settlement, thus making 
it impossible for him to be present and to enjoy the great 
privilege of taking each of you by the hand, as he has done 
for manv years. 

He feels that he has no right to longer occujiy the ])osi- 
tion with which you have honored him in the years past, 
and sujiposed that he had arranged at the last annual meet- 
ing to terminate the holding of his office but failed in doing 
so, notwithstanding his earnest request to be relieved, ha\'- 
ing urged the selection of our honored and able First \'icc- 
President, Dr. Stephen Pierson. as his successor. 

[ MR. MILLS: At this pciint 1 might state the ne.xt two 
sentences will be read bv me, but all the officers mildlv pro- 
test at the contents and especially Doctor Pierson. J 

2 



But, as you know, Dr. Pierson, is a very modest man, 
and the only man in this Association or among his friends 
or acquaintances who does not reaHze his eminent fitness 
for the place which he has heretofore declined to take. 

With Stephen Pierson as your President, Alfred Elmer 
Mills and Willard. W. Cutler as Vice Presidents, Henry C. 
Pitney, Jr., Secretary and John H. Bansall, Treasurer, with 
their associates in the Board of Trustees, you would lose 
nothing in my dropping out. 

This Association ennobled by the name of Washington 
and these Headquarters hallowed by his presence in the 
days past, are very dear to each of us and must be main- 
tained and preserved, and the State of New Jersey has 
never done a better thing than in giving its aid to this pa- 
triotic purpose. 

The Washington Association of New Jersey knows no 
party in politics and no sect in religion. Patriotic citizens 
of good character are eligible to its membership whether 
native or foreign born, or whether descendants of Patriots 
or of Loyalists. And while always conservatively progres- 
sive, it is mindful that "all is not gold that glitters" and that 
what is new is not necessarily an improvement on the old, 
and although we gladly welcome all that is good in the 
present, we will not fail to give due honor and reverence to 
all that is good and great in the past. And knowing as we 
do, that then, as now, women were better than men, we are 
inclined to the belief that our ancestors were neither saints 
nor angels, but very human, but withal are entitled to our 
grateful and undying remembrance and respect. 

We not only disclaim all credit for the virtues and pa- 
triotic deeds of our ancestors but generously concede to 
the^ all the honor of having such remarkable descendants 
as ourselves. 

We must not be unmindful of the patriotic men who 
founded this Association and who have gone from us, Theo- 
dore F. Randolph, George A. Halsey, N. Norris Halstead, 
and within the last year our constant friend, William Van 

3 



Vleck [.idgerwood and their associates. Also we should re- 
member our loyal friends and fellow-workers, Albert H. 
V'ernam. for many years our genial First Vice President, 
Henry C. Pitney, who g;ave us such valuable legal service 
when much needed, Edmund D. Halse^^ our able historian, 
William L. King. George H. Danforth, William Walter 
IMielps, Ferdinand J. Dreer. Thomas C. Bushnell and oth- 
ers; especially, one very dear to me, who by her many and 
generous gifts devoted labor and deep interest in the collec- 
tion of relics for these Head(]uarters is justly entitled to our 
grateful remembrance, Mrs. Jonathan W. Roberts. 

And now in conclusion permit me to urge upon the 
])resent members of this Association, and their successors, 
fidelity to the trust imposed upon them as members, in 
maintaining and perpetuating these Headquarters as a me- 
morial to Cieneral (jeorge Washington and his associate 
ofificers in the War of the Revolution. 

Although not bodily ])resent. I am with you in mind 
and in spirit at this celebration today and ask you to accept 
my sincere regard for each of you. 

Again with a warm and hearty greeting to the Wash- 
ington Association of New Jersey, I am, as ever, 
\"ery faithfully yours, 

JONATFIAN W. ROBERTS. 

MR. STL'LTS: I ofifer three cheers for President 
Roberts! [Cheers were given, with a tiger]. 

Resolved that the Washington Association of New Jer- 
sey highly appreciate the letter of greeting from our hon- 
ored and beloved President and tender him our sincere re- 
grets that he cannot personally be present : 

JUDGE CUTLER: I would like to offer the following 
resolutions : 

And be it further resolved that we fully realize his un- 
tiring efforts on behalf of this Association and appreciate 
his invaluable services and hereby unanimously insist that 

4 



he shall continue in the office of President which he has so 
long- and acceptably filled in the past : 

And, Mr. Chairman, recognizing- the modesty of our 
President in that he has not thought fit in his letter to men- 
tion the services of one who has done more than any one 
else, except himself, to keep this building and grounds in 
their present beautiful and splendid condition, I would add: 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That we tender our 
thanks and appreciation to his niece. Miss Atha E. Hatch, 
for the faithful and able manner in which she has filled the 
office of Curator. [Applause]. 

MR. NELSON: I take great pleasure in seconding the 
resolutions which are so felicitously expressed as read by 
Judge Cutler. I am sure that they voice the sentiment of 
all the members of this Association and I think that we all 
feel, when it comes to the question of Mr. Roberts retiring 
from the Presidency, we would go on a strike, like his lower 
limbs, and I am sure that we would have our Vice Presi- 
dent lead us as the business agent in that strike. [Ap- 
plause]. 

DR. PIERSON : Gentlemen, you have heard the mo- 
tion of Judge Cutler, seconded by Mr. Nelson. All those in 
favor of that motion will please rise. 

(Entire audience arose). 

It is a unanimous vote. [Applause]. 

Gentlemen, if after listening to what Mr. Roberts so 
kindly said about his official staff you noticed that our faces 
are a little reddened, I hope you won't think it was because 
we have been sitting by that punch bowl too long. [Laugh- 
ter]. There hasn't been much said about that punch bowl 
of late years. It has been standardized. [Laughter]. Its 
component parts have been carefully thought out and now 
they slip into the swim with ease and precision. Bearing in 
mind the rather strict motor laws of New Jersey, the punch 
has been geared down to the lowest rate of speed consistent 

5 



with your pleasure and a good time. [Applause and laugh- 
ter]. 

The usual political weather map and forecast will be 
omitted this year. Things are too mixed. Our forecaster 
has not yet been able to decipher to his own satisfaction 
just what did happen last November, or why it happened, 
nor how -it happened, nor what is going to happen. 
[Laughter]. From Vermont and Maine, on down through 
the autumn months, the political barometer kept steadily 
foretelling a fearful disturbance of some sort. Many hug.- 
ged to their bosoms fondly the delusion that it would only 
be some wind puffs, only that and nothing more. But when 
the storm did burst in November it proved to be the real 
thing, and the slaughter of unsuspecting political innocents 
was unprecedented. [Laughter]. The identity of the par- 
ticular sparrow, who, with his little bow and arrow, killed 
all these cock robins, was the subject of much acrimonious 
dispute at the time and has not been settled yet to the sat- 
isfaction of everybody. Perhaps there was more than one 
of him. During all this time, too, the political seismograph, 
or earthquake indicator, kept busy. Its oscillations were 
extreme, indicating a tremendous upheaval going on be- 
neath the surface. Beginning in the west, that prolific 
mother of storms and notions, it started eastward, from the 
Pacific to the Atlantic it went, and from the Great Lakes 
south to what used to be the Mason and Dixon line — now a 
real line no longer, existent only in memory and a very dim 
memory at that, the Lord be praised. [Applause]. Below 
that line the usual unanimity prevailed, — too solid, last No- 
vember, for even a tremor. [Laughter]. The political pool 
of Siloam was vehemently stirred ; its waters fairly boiled ; 
up to the edge of the pool the nation progressed tumultu- 
ously and then plumped in with both feet. Now, whether 
it (the nation) is to be healed or only scalded remains to be 
seen. [Applause and laughter]. 

Three years ago I was in New Haven, attending the 
fortieth anniversary of my class. The Corporation each 

6 



year, at commencement time, gives the alumni dinner to 
thousands of her graduates who return. That year some 
iifteen hundred or two thousand of us graduates were gath- 
ered at the long tables in the great commons dining room. 
Those occasions are understood to be "a feast of reason and 
a flow of souls." Well, as to the "feast" and the "flow" an 
•elaborate discussion is not necessary. As to the former 
there was some bread, dry and plenty of it; a modicum of 
butter, some radishes, some cold meats, about a dozen 
strawberries per. a sHce of tri-colored ice cream and some 
denatured coffee. [Laughter]. The "flow" consisted of 
Apollinaris and New Haven city Avater mixed, city water 
being in the majority. But the "reason" and the "soul" 
were all there, of excellent quality, in great abundance and 
Avith undaunted enthusiasm. After two or three had 
spoken, a collegeman from the Southland arose and deliv- 
ered a message to the college men of the Northland. With 
his opening sentence he caught our attention and he held 
ns to the close. When he had finished, with one accord we 
gave him round after round, because we felt that a man had 
been speaking to us. That man was Edwin A. Alderman, 
L.L.D., president of the University of Virginia, whom we 
will soon have the pleasure of listening to. [Applause]. 
And when he is presented to you I wish you would rise and 
as Jerseymen welcome a Virginian of today to the home of 
a Virginian of yesterday. [Applause]. 

Gentlemen, I present Doctor Alderman. [Applause]. 



ADDRESS OF HDWIN A. ALDERMAN, LLJX, 

President of the University of Virginia. 
"The National Spirit." 



Mr. President and Gentlemen cf the Washington Associa- 
tion: 

My first impulse to-day is to brino- to you greetings and 
sympathy from a land of unlimited and seductive mint 
juleps to a land of "standardized punch and denatured cof- 
fee,'' [Laughter]. 

It is not often that a public speaker feels called upon to 
])ay a compliment to the presence and personnel of an audi- 
ence of mere men, liut it has been a long time since it has 
been my privilege to speak to an audience of men exclu- 
sively, and I confess to a new sense of the dignity and ma- 
jesty inherent in the ])rcsence of a great company of 
thoughtful American citizens, such as I see before me to- 
day. I wish it were possible for me to bring to you a better 
thought-out and a l)etter-ordered discussion than 1 shall be 
able to do, owing to the exigencies of my life for some time 
])ast. I am just a bit in the situation of the old colored 
])reacher who made a settled distinction between being a 
preacher and an exhorter: when asked what was the distinc- 
tion, he said that he "i)referred being an exhorter, 'cause the 
])reacher had to stick to the resolutions, but the exhorter 
could branch." (Laughter J. So I distinctly claim, and I 
think if you knew my history for the past three or four 
weeks you would pardon me, the S])lendid privilege of 
"branching" here this afternoon. 

I congratulate this ancient town upon the possession of 
this great si)iritual asset, the Headcpiarters of George 
Washington, which constitutes an object lesson, a bit of 
concrete teaching to all generations and to all races. As an 



American citizen who lives himself at another shrine of 
American greatness and patriotism — the home of Jefferson. 
— I am proud of the idealism, of the common sense patriot- 
ism that have moved the men of this community for a gene- 
ration or more to do what they have so splendidly done to 
perpetuate this great building and to make it an inspiring 
influence in the life of this state and this nation. 

On January igth of this year the people who live in the 
states to the south of us celebrated the birthday of Robert 
E. Lee. [Applause]. On February 12th the people of the 
north and west celebrated the birthday of Abraham Lin- 
coln. [Applause]. To-day the whole people between the 
double seas are celebrating the birthday of George Wash- 
ington. [Applause]. Three such men — W^ashington, Lee 
and Lincoln, — practically in one century, give to this young 
land of ours, this young civilization of ours, the sort of dis- 
tinction which names like Pericles and Leonidas give to the 
Grecian Archipelago, for after all it is the output of great 
men that makes fame and friends for nations. And the 
whole people, north and south and east and west, will one 
day see all three of them as superlatively great men, great 
iTioral fires burning on the level plain of our existence, giving 
light and warmth to our national conscience and to our 
national ideals. It seems to me to fit in with the theory of 
an overruling Providence governing men's affairs that three 
such men as those three men should stand out in the fore- 
front of American life, furnishing to you their ideals of 
greatness, suggesting restraint, teaching patriotism. The 
grave and thoughtful Washington incarnates to me the very 
genius of integrity, of glorified common sense, of well bal- 
anced righteousness. Abraham Lincoln, into whose face, as 
St. Gaudens has carved it, with its homeliness and its utter 
plainness and yet with its dignity and gentleness and 
strange sweetness, one can not look without seeing the soul 
of democracy shining there, and seeing revealed there some- 
how the whole splendid rise of man from animalism to soul 
and mind and spirit, symbolizes for me the genius of sym- 

9 



pathy and patience and devotion to unselfish ends; while 
the regnant figure of Lee, lying so stately on his bier at 
Lexington, stands for duty and unselfish love and stainless- 
ness of life. Differing in character — they were all alike in 
one great essential, they understood the spiritual signifi- 
cance of patriotism. Patriotism is a hard thing to define, as 
I shall hereafter show. But so is it hard to define the love 
that a mother bears for a child, or the glory of a sun-set. 
But it is a very real thing, and these men felt it, and I be- 
lieve this company feels it, and I believe there are times in 
this great mobile nation of ours, thrilling with all the emo- 
tions of ambition and growth, when it creeps into the hearts 
of the whole nation ; and all men know that after all their 
country is a definite thing and that if need be they would 
give up their lives for it. A clear perception of civic purity 
and enthusiasm for the future marks this interpretation of 
l^atriotism. 

Sympathetic and curious friends from other lands and 
states, if I may "branch" here, sometimes wonder and ask 
me and others why Virginia and the South give to General 
Lee a sort of intensity of love that they do not give to 
\\"ashington. There is a reason for that and it is simple. 
Washington stands high, clean, spotless, like the shaft that 
commemorates his fame in the National Capital, at the very 
gateway of our republican history, symbolizing the majesty 
of the era of origins and success. Lee to them is a type, an 
embodiment of all there is in the sincere and romantic his- 
tory of the state ; its triumphs, its defeats, its joys, its suf- 
ferings, its rebirths, its tragedies, its pride, its pa- 
tience, its sufferings, somehow all center in him. In that 
quiet figure of simple strength and invincible rectitude may 
be discerned, if you will look closely enough, the complete 
drama of a great stock. As he stood at Arlington on that 
fateful day in 1861, smiting his hands over a decision he 
needs must make, his agony, was his people's agony ; as he 
rode in triumph, by virtue of valor and of genius through 
the storm of victorious battle, his glory was their glory ; as 

• 10 



lie stood forth amid the vicissitudes of war. unshaken by 
disaster or unspoiled by success, his fortitude was their for- 
titude ; and as the result of their great appeal was seen at 
last to rise upon his broad shoulders and his stout heart, 
his constancy was their constancy ; and as he stood at the 
■end, amid the shadows of defeat, an appealing^ figure of vir- 
tue and of dignity, his dignity was their dignity ; and some- 
how in the majesty of his manner and bearing he reached 
back into the roots of the golden past of the proud Domin- 
ion and connected that age and its ancient authorities with 
the wonder and the pity and the trouble of the present. And 
now, in this hour of reunion, reconciliation, of absolute for- 
getfulness of old strife, we can all see how, in those five 
quiet years at Lexington, he symbolized and marked out 
the future for every Southern man as it has come to pass 
and bade us live in liberal and lofty fashion, with hearts un- 
spoiled by hate and eyes clear to see the needs of a new and 
mightier day in a new and mightier land. [Applause]. 

Can you wonder at the measure of love people with a 
tragic history bear for such an embodiment of their best, 
who is close, very close to them in their lives? We of the 
South are sometimes laughed at gently for our sensitiveness 
to local things and our pride of State. You will remember 
the dear old A^irginia woman in the 'fifties, who always hesi- 
tated to ask a stranger where he was from for fear that he 
might have to confess that he was not from Virginia. 
[Laughter]. That would make an awkward pause in the 
conversation. Now, I am an xAmerican, and feel utterly at 
home in this Republic of my fathers, "but while there is a 
sectionalism which distrusts all who do not live in their par- 
ticular region, there is as well a fruitful and noble sectional- 
ism which symbolizes love of home, and interest and afifec- 
tion for one's neighbors. Out of such sectionalism as this 
have come the great literatures of the world, the great hero- 
isms of the world, the great sacrifices and the great men. 
And I do not think I speak in any parochial spirit, when, in 
bringing to this company in this great commonwealth which 

11 



Washington served and upon whose soil he lived, the greet- 
ings of the State that gave him birth. T say that Virginia 
seems to me the most encouraging, tlie most unselfish in a 
spiritual sense, the most fruitful of all of our common- 
wealths, for from out of her life rose the genius that clothed 
in noble phrase the reasons for revolution, that guided vic- 
toriously the legions of war, that bore for most initiative in 
shaping the constitution, that afterward interpreted its 
spirit, that widened colonial vision from provincialism to 
maturity, and that fixed faith, through the philosophy of 
Thomas Jefiferson. in average humanity, as the philosophy 
(^f a new civilization. T think that one who is not a Vir- 
ginian by birth can. in this presence, pav, without immod- 
esty, that compliment to the birthland of George Washing- 
ton. [Applause!. 

Now. my friends, the most fruitfid idea in the world to 
me is the idea of democracv. The most interesting, mental 
and moral exercise is the eft'ort to try to interpret demo- 
cracy : to understand its currents as thev flow in the life of 
this nation. Democracv is the greatest idea, but it is almost 
the most terrible idea, in a certain sense, that we have, be- 
cause when democracy is once corrupted it is very difficult 
ever to reform it. You can cut off the head of a king — that 
has been done with expedition and success : you can take a 
sultan in an automobile and carry him to a seaside resort 
and get you another nice, good sidtan ; but vou can not 
change the heart of a great democracy, or vou do it with dif- 
ficulty if it has ever become poisoned. The most glowing 
and wonderful thing to be seen in this world to-day to me 
is the spectacle of this Republic as it is likely to be shaped 
by the forces at work upon it. Somehow the rest of the 
world sees even more clearlv than we do the national per- 
spective, and feel dimly that America is to remake the 
world. Our nearness blinds us somewhat to the wonderful 
national panorama as it has unrolled itself before our eyes. 
First, a group of rustic communities, making common cause 
in behalf of ancient guarantees of freedom : then suspicious 

12 



colonies, unused to the shrewd air that blows through 
democracy, striving- after some bond amid the clash of jeal- 
ous interests ; then a paper writing, a wonderful paper writ- 
ing, compact, of high sense and human foresight and tragic 
compromise ; then a young- republic, lacking the instinct of 
unity, virile, unlovely, raw, waj^ward. in its confident young 
strength. Some confused decades of sad. earnest efifort to 
pluck out an e\'i\ growth planted in its life by the hard 
necessities of compromise by the fathers, but which needs 
must blossom into the flower of civil war before it can be 
plucked out and thrown to the void. Then young manhood, 
nursing its youth, whole and undivisible. proven by trial of 
fire and dark days, opening its eye upon a new world of 
steam and force and siezing greedily and selfishly every 
coign of advantage. And to-day a great and venerable Re- 
public of the world — we do not often reflect that we are 
practically the most venerable republic on this earth, but 
still young and brilliant and cosmopolitan and hopeful and 
breathless, doing our tasks like a titan, and asserting our 
will among the nations. We used to shout over this story, 
like boys at a picnic. The 4th of July speech of 1840, for 
instance, if you could read it, and the speech of men who 
talk on such occasions as this to-day, are very different in 
quality ; the one, as I have said, was like the shouting of 
happy boys, the other is like the talk of mature men on the 
edge of battle. And it is proof of our maturity as a nation 
that the whole idea induces soberness and question. 

It is somewhat difficult in these days to make a speech 
without mentioning Wall Street. Wall Street is bracketed 
with Gehenna, wherever that is, as a sort of symbol of sin. 
Probably that is going' a little strong. A reflection that its 
great activities are founded on faith and integrity gives to 
it and its fellow sinners, Lombard and State, a certain 
aspect of greatness which increases my pride, in a certain 
degree, of the race. Sometimes I go down to Wall Street, 
impelled by that wonder which Plato called the beginning 

13 



of knowledge. I seldom stay long, for the atmosphere 
leaves something to be desired in academic peace ; but I do 
not ever come away without stopping for a look at the fin- 
est thing down there, and you know Avhat that is. It is the 
bronze figure of an old Virginia country gentleman, who 
was the richest man, and the most public spirited citizen at 
the same time, standing upon the steps of the Sub-treasury 
liuilding, looking out with his plain, homely face and his 
honest eyes upon that sea of hurrying men. That statue is 
tlie most remarkable allegory that ever did get placed bv 
historic chance at just the right spot in the history of the 
world. [Laughter and applause]. It points forward to 
some high social order in the future, when the Places 
Vendomes and Trafalgar Squares of the world will cele- 
brate the glory of the great citizen. The romance of Ameri- 
can life for the last generation or so has been the story of 
the poor boy who got rich by the exercise of splendid quali- 
ties ; and that wasn't a bad thing for him to do; but I am 
convinced that the romance of a coming age will not be that 
alone, but rather the story of the poor boy or of the rich boy 
who becomes a great citizen, fit to illustrate the dignitv and 
the majesty of republican life. [Applause]. 

N^ow, how can such a nation as Ave have, so begun, so 
advanced, so beset, be so guided that all of its citizens shall 
l)ecome free men, entering continuallv into the possession 
of intellectual, material and mental benefits?' That is the 
interrogatory of democracy as a sane vision glimpses demo- 
mocracy, robbed of its earlier delusions. Xow, Ave have said 
that the richest man of his day Avas George Washington, 
whose wealth was estimated at eight hundred thousand dol- 
lars. And we have said that the most public spirited man 
of his day was certainly George Washington. Xow. put the 
tAvo facts together and they induce a desire to inquire Avhat 
Avas the conviction in the heart of the richest man of his 
time that enabled him to be the most patriotic man of his 
time, for that conviction has enough strength in it, if it be 

14 



real and if it can be infused into the life of this nation, to carry 
this democratic experiment of ours past a very serious peril. 
Briefly. I believe it was a belief in his heart that democracy 
is the final and the triumphant form of human society : that 
power rests on fitness to rule ; that you can trust men if you 
will train them ; that the sole object of power is the public 
g-ood, and that service to the republic is a glory quite suffi- 
cient in itself. [Applause]. That collection of ideas formed 
a religion to men like Washington and Jefiferson and Hamil- 
ton and Clinton and Adams ; they had a religious sanction 
m the air of an age of moral imagination and superb human 
enthusiasm, which counted any dual standard for public 
and private life the essence of republican treason. A cen- 
tury of trial has somewhat dulled the halo about that 
ancient concept of democracy, but only to men of little 
faith. It is quite true that our democracy of to-day is not 
what Rousseau thought it would be, nor Lord Byron, nor 
Shelley, nor Karl Marx. But as we talk about it and medi- 
tate about it and realize that it has not done everything that 
the dreamers dreamed it would do, we ought to try to settle 
first what it has done and chalk that up to its credit. Here 
are some things I think it has done, or helped to do. It has 
abated sectarian fury. Sectarian fury is ridiculous in this 
age ; it was not always so. Was there anything finer in any 
country than the attitude of the country as to the unitarian- 
ism of President Taft? Did anybody say anything about it 
that amounted to anything? [Applause], jefiferson was a 
Unitarian, but great numbers of the American people called 
him an infidel, and they only began there and then went on 
to fiercer epithets [Laughter]. He was nothing in the 
world but a devoted L^nitarian and had the courage to think 
straight and talk clearly, and with his vast intellectual curi- 
osity and integrity he couldn't do anything else ; but he was 
an infidel to thousands of good people. Democracy has 
abolished slavery. It has protected and enlarged manhood's 
sufifrage. It has mitigated much social injustice. It has de- 
veloped a touching and almost sublime faith in the power of 

15 



education, illustrating- it by expending^ six hundred million 
dollars a year in the most darino- thing;- that democracy has 
ever tried to do. namely, to fit for citizenship every human 
being born within its borders. [Applause]. It has increased 
kindness and gentleness, and thus diminished the fury of par- 
tisanship. Have you ever thought how much less partisan- 
ship there is now than there used to be even when we were 
boys? Think of that spectacle in Washington of President 
Taft and Champ Clark passing the reciprocity bill, non-par- 
tisan zeal actuating both parties. [Laughter]. Think of 
President Taft appointing Edward Douglas White, a Con- 
federate soldier and a Democrat and a Roman Catholic — all 
three — to the Chief Justiceship of the United States. [Ap- 
plause]. Was there ever a greater blow in the face of com- 
bined partisanship and sectarianism than that? It preserved 
the form of the Union. It has conquered its wilderness. It 
has developed great agencies of culture and has somehow 
made itself a symbol of prosperity, of individual prosperity, 
and is diminishing daily the very possibility of war with any 
country, but especially with that great country from which 
we came and from which we separated, because it was right 
and just that we should separate. [Applause]. So I do not 
think that democracy has failed. I think it has done a world 
of good. It has justified itself of the sufferings and the sac- 
rifices and the dreams of the men who established it in this 
new land. P)Ut it has also, without doubt, by the very trust 
that it places in men, developed new and hateful masters in 
])olitics and new shapes of temptations and wrong-doing, 
and in this generation, from 1870 to 1910, which, I am in- 
clined to think, is the busiest, the most hot-footed genera- 
tion that the world has ever seen, without sufl'icient leisure 
for ethical considerations, it is in danger of its own strength, 
and it must somehow find out how to protect itself with its 
own strength. Now, I am not going to rail against great 
constructive forces, or utter cheap prophecies of condemna- 
tion, or to doubt that the future of this country will be a 
happier future and a republican future. But I am simply 

16 



claiming- that democracy, like a man's character, is never 
clean out of dano;er. You have got to watch it. The moral 
life of man, said Froude, is like the flight of a bird in the 
air; he is sustained only by effort and when he ceases to 
exert himself he falls. And the same, it seems to me, is im- 
pressively true of institutional and ^governmental life. It is 
not selfishness or corruption alone that we have to fear in 
our democracy, for we have vanquished these before and 
these existed before, but even more the temper of despair, of 
faithlessness, which blinds the eyes of men, and of youth 
especially, to the heroic simplicity, to the love of freedom 
and to the essential cleanliness of the heart of the American 
people. The chief weapon of the protective strength of 
democracy I conceive to be the acceptance of the Washing- 
ton type of public spirit as a working^ form of patriotism, 
upon as large a scale in the social and political order as the 
principle of co-operation and combination has been accepted 
in the industrial order. By the measure in which the Uni- 
ted States Steel surpasses a blacksmith shop in efficiency ; 
by the measure in which municipal government surpasses 
the rural township in complexity of politics ; in that mea- 
sure must the national conscience become able to see the 
essential moral and public nature of both business and poli- 
tics, not in a socialistic but in a democratic sense. Now, 
must this involve a moral miracle? Must we all be born 
again and have an utter change of human nature? Or does 
it involve a surrender of democracy to socialism, or to some 
other order? I think that it involves profoundly and yet 
simply the reaffirmation of the founders' idea of public 
spirit and simplicity of life as a dominant national motive 
and as a sort of inner well-springy of conduct in place of the 
idea of headlong- streng-th and achievement that has domi- 
nated us for some generations back. Patriotism, therefore, 
as I said before, — which is hard to define and new with 
every age, and public spirit, which is hard to define and new 
with every age, — must redefine themselves ; patriotism 
meant manhood rights when Washington took it to his 

17 



heart and foug'ht for it here on these hills, as it means to the 
Russian to-day. It somehow spelled culture, refinement and 
distinction of mind when Emerson in his Phi Beta Kappa 
address besou^s^ht the slusrsi'ish intellect of his country to 
look up from under its iron lids. It signified ideals and 
theories of g-overnment to the soldiers of Grant and to the 
soldiers of Lee. It meant industrial grreatness and a splen- 
did desire to annex nature to man's uses when the great 
business leaders of this generation and of the last genera- 
tion built up their great businesses and tied the Union to- 
gether in a unity of steel and steam more completely than 
all the wars could do and did it, with a patriotism 
and a statesmanship and an imagination that no man 
can deny. [Applause]. The honest business-man 
needs somebody to praise 'him. He has done a great 
service in this country, and when he is steady and honest 
there is no greater force in all our life. Now, to-day, pa- 
triotism means — I am just taking a fling at the definition of 
it — a reaction from an unsocial individualism — that sounds 
sort of academic — to restraint and consideration for the 
general welfare, expressing itself in a cry for moderation 
and fairness and justice and honor and sympathy in the use 
of power and of wealth as the states of spirit and mind, that 
alone can safeguard republican ideals. The emphasis was 
formerly on the rights of man ; it is getting to be placed 
upon the duties of man. If in our youth and feverish 
strength there has grown up a spirit of avarice and a desire 
for quick wealth, and a theory of life in lesser minds that 
estimates money is everything and is willing to do anything 
for money, that very fact has served to define the patriotic 
duty and the mood of the national mind. And is not the 
theory of our overlooking special providence borne out 
again in the fact that, as in the period seeking to establish 
manhood rights there stood forth at the head of the nation 
the figure of Washington, a republican saint around whom 
a young nation could rally, so in this period, pausing to 
search its heart, there stood forth as our president for seven 

18 



years the figure of a bold prophet of common righteousness 
and common decency, strong enough to be everywhere and 
unconscious enough to preach his doctrine in a thousand 
voices, [Applause] to be followed in that great office by 
our present President, clear of heart, pure of heart, strong 
of mind, patient minded, seeking to put into law the thing 
that needs to be done? I, who say this of these two republi- 
can leaders, am a Democrat to the bone and rejoice that that 
party has come into power again. I am impressed with the 
patience and good sense with which its leaders have grap- 
pled with their problems. I take especial pride in the fact 
that Oscar Underwood, the foremost figure in the approach- 
ing Tariff struggles, is a son of the University of Virginia. 
[Applause]. This re-awakened patriotism of the common 
good has the advantage of appeal to a sound public con- 
science as yet unbalanced by hysteria and of being sup- 
ported by a valid public opinion not yet dulled by content- 
ment. It is an astonishing thing what our public opinion 
has stood. In proof of the soundness and the authority of 
public opinion I would claim that if there be a man in 
America to-day who has an unjust fortune and a pagan 
ideal of its use, he will not bask as cozily in the self-respect 
of his fellows, nor have half as much fun as Croesus had, or 
as Louis XIV' had, or Cardinal Richelieu had, or Warren 
Hastings or any of that ilk. The gift of a hundred and 
twenty millions in one year by private individuals to the 
public welfare, the colossal development of the sense of 
social obligations is a substantial testimony on the affirma- 
tive side of that opinion. A servant of the people, in city or 
state, who is out for exploitation rather than service is not 
as highly an honored man as was Robert Walpole or War- 
ren Hastings or Aaron Burr, as the roll call of some prison 
houses will show. The disposition which democracy has 
shown at the most inconvenient moment to ask the bosses 
that be whether they are the bosses that ought to be, to 
paraphrase Mr. Lowell's phrase, and the answer to that 
question, are the other testimonials to the affirmative side 

19 



of tliat opinion. Plain people, it is true, are not as awe 
struck at the names of the rich and powerful as they once" 
were ; but one may note a oTowincr ability to render awe 
where awe is worthily rendered, which is a beautiful g-rowth 
in discernment. The part that vulgar cunning has played in 
creating- great fortunes has been made known to this great 
democracy and they know the genuine from the spurious, 
and some who were once looked at with awe and greatness 
as great ones, are not now looked at in that wa}'. I am re- 
minded of the tragic little verse : 

"Alary had a little lamb, 
Its fleece was white as snow, 
She took it to Pittsburg one day. 
And now look at the damn thing." [Laughter]. 

This very growth in discernment gives us power to see 
in a nobler and truer light, for the people of America, the 
names of those upright souls in business and in politics who 
have held true in a heady time and who have kept clean and 
, kept human their public sympathies and their republican 
ideals, and by so doing have kept sweet their country's 
fame. Away with the thought that this country is sunk in 
any mire of moral degradation. It has simply met and is 
out-facing — it hasn't yet outfaced it — one of the million 
moral crises that are likely to assail free government, and I 
believe that it is cleaner to-day in ruling passion, in motive 
and in practice, than it has been in fifty years. [Applause]. 

Now, let me hurry to my conclusion. I do not mean in 
all that I have said to be indulging in any easy and gracious 
optimism. This republic is trying to adjust itself, its old self, 
which was the product of rural individualism and a reaction 
against monarchy, to its new self, which is the product of 
urban democracy and natural science, in such fashion that 
it shall lose neither the individualism, which guarantees 
freedom, nor the co-operative genius, which insures power 
and progress. That is a colossal task. 

(3ur old political philosophy contended that that gov- 
ernment is best which governs least. The French have put 

20 



this theory of government into the expression "Laissez 
faire." Herbert Spencer shaped it into an ordered philoso- 
phy. The hi^h priest of that idea in America is Thomas 
Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson feared kings and priests. He 
did not fear wealth nor great organized corporate power 
with money at its center. We hear a great deal about 
Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. He is not dead down in 
Charlottesville or in Albemarle county. He is living, is 
walking around, the most persistent type of immortality I 
have ever encountered. He is quoted on everything, from 
"How to Plough," to the nature of the curriculum at the 
University of Virginia. [Laughter]. Jefferson was a wise 
old souh and the greatest bit of wisdom that the man had 
and the thing that lifts him among the great of this wide 
earth was a patient belief in the ultimate integrity of popu- 
lar impulse, plus the determination never to cease giving 
the public an opportunity to fit itself for its work. [Ap- 
plause]. That old man loved the plain people and trusted 
them. He was an idealist, a dreamer of dreams, and that 
spirit kept him young when eighty-six years had gone over 
his head, and made him sit on his mountain top in a certain 
splendid heroism and watch the slow-rising walls of the in- 
stitution which he thought would train the democracy to 
right ways, and which, I thank God, has trained democracy 
somewhat for its work in this country. 

Now, the young men coming up in life to-day are wit- 
nessing and being taught in the schools a new social philo- 
sophy which is making over the world in which we live. I 
do not know what to call it exactly. I would call it social- 
ism, if that noble and beautiful word considered philo- 
sophically had not been bandied about until it had gained a 
sinister meaning and an evil significance. I can not find a 
name for it that quite- suits me, but it differs fundamentally 
from the old philosophy which perceived government as a 
sort of near-sighted and benevolent policeman, and society 
as a group of units to be protected from violence, to be 
helped not at all, and to be allowed to do as they pleased 

21 



provided they didn't please to do other people. [Laughter]. 
It was the doctrine of non-interference, of each man for 
himself and the devil take the hindmost. Now, this new 
philosophy has arrived, which I have not found a name for. 
Call it collectivism, if you want to, anything will do. I am 
not arguing- for it. You will understand I am simply at- 
tempting to describe it, to segregate it in a few words. It 
has three fundamental qualities ; it treats society as an or- 
ganism and proposes to study it and to make it scientific, 
and through knowledge of it to help it. Never in the his- 
tory of the world have men set about to study society scien- 
tifically as they are doing now. Twenty-five years ago you 
could hardly find a chair in any American college for the 
study of sociology ; the word had not been born and when it 
got born people sneered at it. Now, it is everywhere, in 
every college men are studying society. I do not think 
there is a more interesting thing in present day politics than 
the proposal to establish a tariff commission, and there is a 
likelihood that it will be established. Fifty years, thirty 
years, twenty years ago such a commission would have been 
laughed out of court. Back of it is this scientific spirit 
which urges people to find out the facts about things, and 
know about things before they do them, instead of doing 
them first and then, finding out about them afterward. 
[Applause]. Second, this new scientific spirit is informed 
with the spirit of sympathy and of brotherhood. It will rrot 
let people alone. It insists upon helping people whether 
they want it or not. It is sympathetic, merciful and curi- 
ous. I had a dear friend, a woman in Louisiana, known to 
my friend Mr. Mabie, who heard me making a 
speech once, and I unfortunately used the word "uplift ;" 
she came to me with face flushed and said "Don't you talk 
about any uplift to me. I don't want to be uplifted." 
[Laughter]. Well, now, a good many people feel that way, 
but the spirit of modern society is in the uplift business. 
The beggar has been known to literature for all time, but 
this age proposes to introduce him to political economy and 

22 



study him. The child has been a pathetic and a beautiful 
figure in our literature. This age, the first of all ages, is 
making scientific, passionate, devoted study of the child. 
That child exhibit in New York is one of the greatest thino-s 
to be seen on this continent, or in any land. The child has 
become the center of the regard of statesmen and political 
economists. Men say that all this eager concern for the 
child is making him a little more difficult to handle. Per- 
haps that is true. I myself notice that it is getting a little 
more difficult for parents to give satisfaction to their chil- 
dren. [Laughter]. I do not think we have quite reached 
the danger point, however. Our new philosophy, then, 
treats society as an organism and studies it; secondly, it is 
informed by intense sympathy; third, it has a genius for 
organization and co-operation. This genius for organiza- 
tion manifests itself not only in individual organization for 
the public welfare, but in a passion for legislation and the 
enactments of statutes for the public welfare as well as in 
big business. Fifteen hundred laws in the last ten years 
have been passed to effect the betterment of the laboring 
man. If I were to read off to this great company a mere 
list of great organizations like the National Civic Federa- 
tion, the National Society for the Suppression of Tubercu- 
losis, the Public Health Societies, with two thousand mem- 
bers; the great foundations, like the Sage Foundation, the 
Carnegie Foundation, the General Educational Board,' the 
Rockefeller Institute, great movements, voluntarily entered 
into by individuals to effect world purposes, I would con- 
sume all of my time. Think of AndrcAv Carnegie proposing 
to stop war in all the world ; taking this great question and 
putting it on a basis so that patiently the futility of war can 
be taught to all nations. This will not come about in any- 
body's time, but there is a sort of majestic idealism in the 
thought of it. 

Now, you can call this new social philosophy what you 
will, it is a new and mighty force in American life, one 
formed by sympathy, by vast human interest, by brother- 

23 



hood, by the instinct of a passion for knowledge of society 
and by a wonderful genius for co-operative effort. It has 
come to stay and we must adapt it to our new needs and 
make it a useful agent of genuine democracy. 

Now, my friends it is difficult for me to close without 
saying just this one word. The Southern man is so often 
thought of as an ambassador from one court of public opin- 
ion to another, that I had thought of closing my speech 
without mentioning the South at all. So completely do I 
think of my section as one, simply one, with you and all the 
rest of this nation in social and in economic unification ; but 
the impulse to declare to you, and I think you will be glad 
to have me say it, that the progress in Southern affairs con- 
stitutes one of the most satisfying visions bf the nation's 
life, is too strong for me to resist. After isolation and sub- 
mersion through the virtues of self-reliance and patience, 
the Southern States are now vigorous parts of the modern 
industrial democracy. Their development in education, in 
agriculture, in industrialism, in public spirit, is harmonious 
and equable, without frenzy or perversion of ideals. 

Our people have learned that patriotism may express 
itself in terms of wealth, as well as in terms of loyalty, but 
somehow they have not learned it too well. They are happy 
over full smokehouses and corn cribs and cotton fields and 
savings banks, and it is very pleasant to wax fat a little 
after lean years. But their happiness is not yet sordid in- 
toxication ; the>' are growing rich, but yet not disgustingly 
rich. [Laughter]. They know that they have much to 
learn of the East and the West of the value of universal 
training, of orderly community effort, of industrial organiza- 
tion ; and they are learning it and they are sitting at the 
feet of the masters of it. But they believe that they, too, 
have something to teach you and their brethren in the na- 
tion of the dignity of personality, of idealism, of unsordid- 
ness, of a certain individualism bred in the bone of an 
American untouched as yet by racial intermingling and un- 
moved as yet by restless urban influences. The Southern 

24 



boy of this generation, with whom 1 deal, has found himself 
at last. He has been wanderinor about ; he didn't quite know 
where he was, but he has found himself in American life 
and he has made himself at home, at the very moment. I 
.think, when the Republic is most in need of him. for I want 
to tell you that I believe him to be a fine, simple, helpful 
figure, this young Southern boy, whom I teach and whom I 
love and whom I know so well, of good political instincts 
facing tardily a fierce industrialism and a new democracy, 
with its temptations and its grandeurs and its opportunities, 
and yet somehow striving to hold fast, through the con- 
servatism in his blood, to the noble concepts of public 
honor and public probity. And there is a fine justice that 
this should be true, at the climax of the heroic rebirth of his 
section, so long overborne with burdens and tragedies and 
misconceptions, but at last, and you will rejoice with me, I 
believe in this, unhindered and buoyant and free to run the 
course which Jefiferson foresaw and Washington blessed 
with his transparent integrity and his noble common sense. 
[Applause]. 

DR. PIERSON: When I told you that three years ago 
a man spoke to us in New Haven, was I right? [Cries "of 
'•Yes, yes."l Now, I feel like adding to that that this af- 
ternoon an inspired, and an inspiring, man has spoken to us. 
[Applause). 

I am sure I speak for you all when I thank Doctor Al- 
derman for his address and ask for a copy for publication in 
our minutes. Do you so feel? [Members : "We do."] 

We will now close by singing the first and last verses 
of AMERICA. 

(Singing of AMERICA). 

Good by, until next year. 



HAI.JAN. 21, igOS 



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LS?!^ °^ CONGRESS 



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